Wireless network providers conventionally use relatively complex, expensive, private, and inflexible methods for collecting information about the quality of their wireless networks. More particularly, network providers use large vehicles outfitted with custom equipment, such as specialized network monitoring analyzers, which are used to access and monitor a wireless network.
The data collected by network providers generally does not reflect a true user experience because this data is collected using different equipment than what a typical user has available. Frequently, the data collected is theoretical data. In other cases, instead of true user data, the collected data is at best a representation of the results of particular tests executed by the test operator. In addition, the test equipment used is specialized for performing the tests specified by the network provider, and the collected data is often very complex and does not provide information about how users interact with the network. The resulting complex test information is often not available to the end user or to the general public and often does not reflect conditions encountered by the general public.